joedj
Junior Strategist
Posts: 513
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Post by joedj on Apr 2, 2017 17:51:42 GMT
MK1/MK2 the Warmachine:Hordes paradigm was Resource management:Risk management. Is this a true characterization or goal of the game design any more?
In MK3 this balance has shifted significantly with Resource management gaining significant strides, especially as it relates to spamming lower cost warjacks, with their auto Power-up. AND loss of most efficiencies in Risk management options as well as general reduction in Thresholds for warbeasts.
Some WM models for release on the near horizon will provide additional Empower type effects making resources more available on the Warmachine side. [How many Focus tokens can NemoX & company have out on a turn?]
Future Theme list(s) may provide increases to Thresholds or reduced cost Fury-management options [See Power of Dhunia for both!], and we may see additional Fury management options a la #designspace.
It will be interesting to see which future WM lists exploit Focus generation to the point where Resource management is no longer 'management' but 'entitlement'. And which Hordes lists can reduce Risk to the degree necessary to combat their lower cost mechanical brethren, turn after turn.
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Post by pangurban on Apr 2, 2017 18:03:34 GMT
Looking at Legion (Fury mgmt out the wazoo in any list that needed it) and Trollbloods (the infantry faction of Hordes) in Mk II, I had my doubts about the risk management characterization already back then.
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Post by Rowdy Dragon on Apr 2, 2017 19:29:16 GMT
Hordes was pretty much NEVER about risk management. Its more like 100% reliable beasts that you can sometimes put into overdrive (And then you might have a risk).
It's ridiculous that Warmachine has to pay many many points for just an extra focus or two, but Hordes Focus Boosters can easily calm down many beasts at once. But because there are one or two warcasters that can provide allot of focus to jacks well then ENTITLEMENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If you don't think that Warmachine struggles with resources all the gosh darned time then you are insane.
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princeraven
Junior Strategist
Shredder spam is best spam
Posts: 256
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Post by princeraven on Apr 3, 2017 2:39:40 GMT
I don't consider playing Hordes to be about risk management, it's still resource management. The difference between Fury and Focus is that the limit Fury has can be exceeded by sacrificng other resources in terms of activations or points. Focus does not have this ability but in return has more robust resources between Power Up and cheaper battlegroup models.
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Post by dicebedamned on Apr 3, 2017 12:33:51 GMT
I think Warmachine is predicted resource management whilst Hordes is in flight resource management.
Warmachine, you allocate out your focus at the start, and if something goes wrong, there is not many ways of suddenly correcting it by giving out more focus mid turn - even models with empower would have had to been placed so that they could provide their focus to another jack as a contingency, presuming their empower focus was not already spoken for in the original plan - whereas with Hordes, you can adjust mid turn.
Crusader has two focus on it and charges a target, fluffs the charge hit and so is now stuck engaged with a heavy on more health than expected, not much you can do at this point other than charge another heavy in. Mauler charges, fluffs the hit roll, well OK not ideal but he has 4 more fury to burn to correct the issue. Sure someone somewhere else is going to need to pull that fury, but if that is not possible, you can always trust the dice gods on the threshold check.
From this standpoint, I would say Hordes is much less risky. Contingency is built into the fury mechanic. The counter to this which makes focus comparable is that focus is a preset stat. The Warmachine player knows he/she will have X focus to play with per turn, where as the Hordes player has an ever changing value.
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Post by gunmageintraining on Apr 3, 2017 15:35:12 GMT
The concept of hordes and risk management was never around for very long. It existed briefly, but then they started adding fury mechanics beyond simple Warlocks and it went out the window. By and large, it's not hard to keep warbeasts under control, and even when you do let them rampage, they can be managed in such a way as to still benefit you. The whole 'Risk' of having your warbeasts come and snack on your warlock was dramatically overblown.
In any case, yes... warbeasts have routinely been better than jacks at every point, at least mechanic wise. What they fall behind on are raw stats. Without secondary effects or boosts, most beasts trail jacks in raw power point for point. This is part of the balancing act because Beasts provide additional abilities for the warlocks and transfer points for damage. Secondary to that was the almost complete and utter lack of arc nodes, so it made Hordes even weaker tactically, though that rarely was an issue as most warlocks lack the means to get significant value out of offensive spells.
As editions have changed though, many warbeasts are pretty much equal to warjacks, yet the resource mechanic system is still in place. Power Up was simply a means to help redress this core imbalance (and to sell more jacks).
Granted... I think them trying to sell more jacks, get more large models and move away from infantry machine was one of the core points.
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Fire Step
Junior Strategist
Everyday I'm Wrastlin'
Posts: 334
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Post by Fire Step on Apr 10, 2017 13:24:53 GMT
I've picked up minions very recently, and have really noticed the lack of fury management on the gator side. I know the gobber chef is a thing, as well as the farrow bone grinders, but neither one really screams out at me. The bone grinders have to hit a beast to remove fury, and the chef needs to kill an infantry chap to remove or add.
As far as "risk" Management, the risk is all in the fact that there's a model that you've invested in unable to do anything in the following turn. I'm sure we all remember the days of command checks, as well as failing them and losing an entire unit for a turn.
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Post by trollsareblue on Apr 10, 2017 13:41:43 GMT
Calaban has the right of it. The difference is predictability. Leave 1 fury on a beast and there's a chance they won't do anything useful the following turn. The flexibility of fury is pretty much negated by price tag. Any beast with more than 3 fury costs a minimum of 15 points, and generally have lower stats than equivalent jacks. You might flub an attack with one jack, but when you can pretty easily generate lists with a 2-1 jack advantage, it isn't that big a deal.
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Post by Rowdy Dragon on Apr 10, 2017 17:31:59 GMT
Predictability is called risk. People argue that Hordes isn't about risk...Yes it isn't. Its not about risk. Its also about resource managment and risk only comes in very rarely. The argument of the risk being that "Your Beast can't do anything NEXT turn" is counterset by Warmachines "The risk that my Jack won't do enough THIS turn because I didn't invest enough focus into it).
I'm not necessarily talking about balance. Im talking about the fact that "Resource Vs Risk management" is a misnomer.
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Fire Step
Junior Strategist
Everyday I'm Wrastlin'
Posts: 334
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Post by Fire Step on Apr 14, 2017 17:00:02 GMT
Just to note, there's also the fact that if you heavy on Fury that you can't transfer damage to the beast. I lost a game against someone that could add Fury to my beasts, meaning I then couldn't transfer when he went in on the assassination. It's not just not being able to use the beast in your turn, it's about the beast supporting the warlock on the enemies turn.
If that's not risk I don't know what is. Warjacks don't really get the option to support their caster by taking the damage in the same way that hordes does. And of course, that inherent risk of passing off the damage is also risking killing off your beast.
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Post by Rowdy Dragon on Apr 14, 2017 18:49:47 GMT
If that's not risk I don't know what is. If you spend focus on a Warjack or on spells you can't camp. There is nearly no risk that Fury has that Focus doesn't also have sans the rare occasion of the Frenzy rule.
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Post by Gamingdevil on Apr 18, 2017 9:15:49 GMT
If that's not risk I don't know what is. Warjacks don't really get the option to support their caster by taking the damage in the same way that hordes does. And of course, that inherent risk of passing off the damage is also risking killing off your beast. Warcasters also don't get the option to simply ignore hits of 10+ damage though. Unless you kill them, damage to your beasts is largely irrelevant because they remain fully functional with some ad-hoc healing, something Warmachine factions generally have to pay points for.
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Lanz
Junior Strategist
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Post by Lanz on Apr 18, 2017 10:06:08 GMT
It was never risk management vs resource management. That was always an oversimplification. Hordes had the entirety of warmachine's 'resource management', they just additionally had the option to go full-burst and risk repercussions for it.
Hordes was only 'risk' management when you wanted it to be, while warmachine was no more 'resource' management than hordes was.
Now warmachine just has substantially more resources to work with than hordes does.
I hadn't really considered it before now, but check this out:
Lets say you have a hordes battlegroup, let's say 5 warpwolf stalkers and a gorax under maybe Mohsar(doesn't really matter too much). That's 97/97 points. On full-burn, each stalker will make 4 sword attacks and a claw attack on the charge. All of those stalkers can get Primal and warp strength, so that's PS20 sword attacks and PS18 claw attacks. In total, across all 5 of them, that's 5 boosted PS20s, 15 normal PS20, and 5 PS18 claws.
Now, by contrast, lets say we have Severius with 10 crusaders and a heirophant. Each Crusader with Power Up can charge and make its 2 initial attacks. 8/10 of them can get a focus for an extra attack. So that's 10 PS19 boosted attacks, 8 unboosted, and 10 PS15 attacks.
If we average that damage out against an ARM 20 target, the warmachine list totals 163 damage on average rolls (or in other words enough damage to one-round around 4 juggernauts and leave a 5th critically damaged). By contrast, the circle list averages 182.5, enough for 5 juggernauts comfortably with some extra.
Now, none of this accounts for things like threat range, special rules, and other quirks, but we can see that all else aside, the damage output of an all-out hordes list isn't necessarily too far apart from a warmachine list that is spamming way more heavies, but consequentially can't give them all nearly as much focus each. So if we assume this is balanced and intended, then the differing factors come not from the comparison of damage output, but rather everything else. In this case, the crusader spam clearly has way more bodies and boxes to throw around, but the circle list out-threats many targets, can sprint away afterwards, and brings various other utilities. The crusaders can obviously be jammed easier, but the stalkers can berserk to clear flak and sprint away. In both cases, the caster is assumed to be burning all their resources to maximize their battlegroup, but it's also worth mentioning that severius would have to give up an attack for every focus he wants to spend for anything else, whereas Kromac would be giving up buffs instead.
So risk or reward or whatever, even pushing things to their conceivable maximum, they aren't all that far apart necessarily.
edit: I suppose the closest hordes gets to risk management is if you have overloaded fury on a lot of beasts and you're choosing between pulling some fury off of many of them vs pulling more fury off some and leaving others loaded.
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Post by heckler on Apr 23, 2017 16:15:20 GMT
I've heard from many people thinking that warbeasts are overcosted. I agree that some of them are a point too heavy, but in general a warbeast has many advantages over jacks; that really can't be denied. Raw stats are lower, but most factions have a way to cope with that for sure (beast handlers, animi, etc), and majority of beasts (and all the flagship ones) can spend more fury than a warjack could have spent focus. my favorite suggestion so far is that all warlocks gain +4-6 beast points to offset this. it would alleviate some of the cost issues while not really making anything else spammable.
Playing both WM and hordes, I feel that you really need to sample both sides regularly to get a feel of the plight of your enemy. I play hark with 7 warjacks in my khador pair and I must say that the shortcoming is the lack of getting work done with more than a few warjacks in a turn and the lack of hitting power against high-end targets. I have to play more strategic to scalpel targets of opportunity or ram more jacks into the opponent than they are prepared to handle; deciding which strategy I need is sometimes tough. Honestly, I love Hark, but when you analyze him, he's basically a mobility battery with a feat. He has little focus to dish out and can really only enter the fray late game most of the time.
Beasts however can get that one great turn of maxing out and if they accomplish their goal, need not worry about the consequences. I know this seems facile, but with warmachine there is more of a problem getting to the end point than hordes in that regard. Most of the time with a beast, you can choose to run hot somewhere if it's going well or if you missed and need the extra attack; if you happened to roll well then you can stop spending fury just as easily. That flexibility is a huge part of a beast that has no points comparison in warjacks. Resources are limited, precious and are needed to be committed before they can be used. Failing to clear out the screening models before your jacks go in just means you lost that focus; perhaps you can still make it do something, but your plan is bust and resources are spent.
Overall I must say that in Mk1/2 I thought the fury mechanic is just far and away better than the focus mechanic. The only counter to me was that WM casters were more caster-like than hordes, for the most part. In Mk3, I am liking the focus mechanic more, but still appreciate the sheer volume of work that a hordes battlegroup on full spending can accomplish.
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Post by oncomingstorm on Apr 24, 2017 7:17:14 GMT
I've heard from many people thinking that warbeasts are overcosted. I agree that some of them are a point too heavy, but in general a warbeast has many advantages over jacks; that really can't be denied. Raw stats are lower, but most factions have a way to cope with that for sure (beast handlers, animi, etc), and majority of beasts (and all the flagship ones) can spend more fury than a warjack could have spent focus. my favorite suggestion so far is that all warlocks gain +4-6 beast points to offset this. it would alleviate some of the cost issues while not really making anything else spammable. Playing both WM and hordes, I feel that you really need to sample both sides regularly to get a feel of the plight of your enemy. I play hark with 7 warjacks in my khador pair and I must say that the shortcoming is the lack of getting work done with more than a few warjacks in a turn and the lack of hitting power against high-end targets. I have to play more strategic to scalpel targets of opportunity or ram more jacks into the opponent than they are prepared to handle; deciding which strategy I need is sometimes tough. Honestly, I love Hark, but when you analyze him, he's basically a mobility battery with a feat. He has little focus to dish out and can really only enter the fray late game most of the time. Beasts however can get that one great turn of maxing out and if they accomplish their goal, need not worry about the consequences. I know this seems facile, but with warmachine there is more of a problem getting to the end point than hordes in that regard. Most of the time with a beast, you can choose to run hot somewhere if it's going well or if you missed and need the extra attack; if you happened to roll well then you can stop spending fury just as easily. That flexibility is a huge part of a beast that has no points comparison in warjacks. Resources are limited, precious and are needed to be committed before they can be used. Failing to clear out the screening models before your jacks go in just means you lost that focus; perhaps you can still make it do something, but your plan is bust and resources are spent. Overall I must say that in Mk1/2 I thought the fury mechanic is just far and away better than the focus mechanic. The only counter to me was that WM casters were more caster-like than hordes, for the most part. In Mk3, I am liking the focus mechanic more, but still appreciate the sheer volume of work that a hordes battlegroup on full spending can accomplish. I play both Warmachine and Hordes, and every time I play my Hordes, I am disappointed by how little work my beasts get done in comparison to my jacks (and it's not just because I'm a crappy hordes player.) You say that hordes players forget that jacks need to be allocated focus to work at full efficiency. I say that nearly every faction has a cheap source of empower. You say that hordes beasts can get up to near the stats of jacks with the help of support...support which costs still MORE points, or costs fury off of your caster (you know, the exact thing you're saying makes Warmachine so focus strapped.) You say that beasts can go all out for a turn...but the next turn, most of those beasts will be useless, whereas the warmachine player can keep getting consistent output turn after turn. On top of which, Warjacks get the following: - generally better defensive stats - generally better base offensive stats (the average MAT on a melee jack is 7, the average MAT on a melee beast is 6, and Jack melee P+S is generally higher - I don't think there's a SINGLE non gargantuan beast with base P+S 19, while the juggernaut gets it for 12 points.) - almost always cheaper than their equivalent counterparts by a factor of about 33%. The Feral is in no way worth 1.5 Juggernauts, but that's what it costs... - Construct special rule, which, while not always relevant, can be relevant for certain spells and special rules (terminal velocity, poison) which are far more common than rules which benefit against warjacks - a resource mechanic that scales with the number of warjacks on the table. You rarely see more than 6 beasts in a list, because if you do, some of them can't run without risking frenzy. On the other hand, spamming cheap jacks is a common and easy strategy. On top of what warjacks get, WarMACHINE gets the following: - Casters with a better average focus stat - Casters with generally better spell lists (average warmachine caster has 2 more spells than the average hordes caster.) This difference is NOT made up by animi, especially with the nerf of non-self animi going into Mk3. - None of a caster's spells go away if you kill one of their jacks - Units which can crack armor unassisted. Almost a universal problem for Hordes. - Access to mercenaries, which are both more diverse and offer better support to the core factions than minions. Hordes gets NOTHING that's anywhere near the level of impact of an Anastasia Di Bray, a Rupert Carvolo, or a Reinholdt. So no, I do not accept your argument that there is only a minor difference between Warmachine and Hordes. Most of the people in my Meta have stopped playing their hordes factions entirely, and only play Warmachine, and it's not because of the novelty of power up (which wore off a few months ago.) Hordes needs a serious revamp, and has needed one since last year.
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